F1 risks "collapse" over costs – Mosley

Former FIA president Max Mosley says Formula 1 risks collapsing unless it finds a way to reduce costs and shares revenues in a fair manner.

Marcus Ericsson, Sauber C34 retired from the race

As F1 chiefs continue to fail to agree on a plan to reduce expenditure while several teams struggle for survival, Mosley reckons it is imperative that a compromise is found to solve what he labeled as a "massive problem" for the sport.

The Briton, who was the head of the FIA from 1993 to 2009, claims at least 50 per cent of the current grid is struggling to compete because of financial issues.

He reckons the way revenue is shared among teams is very unfair.

"At least half the teams simply can't compete because they haven't got enough money, and that to me is wrong," Mosley said in an interview with DPA.

"You obviously wouldn't allow one team to run a bigger engine than another team and yet if one team has got five times as much money the effect is exactly the same as if they had a bigger engine.

"It's not fair from the sporting point of view.

"The only way to deal with it is to get everybody to agree.

"You can sit all the teams down and say 'look collectively we've got a massive problem because some of you have got enough money but most of you haven't and if we go on like this Formula 1 is going to collapse, so I am inviting you all to agree to a change'.

"But they would have to all agree. You can't do it without unanimity, unfortunately."

Technology push has gone too far

Mosley believes Formula 1 has gone too far in its push for hybrid engine technology, and he feels the majority of the public is not even that interested in it.

"Of course the technology is amazing but a great deal of it is concealed so the public don't actually see – 90 per cent, 95 per cent of what goes on is not visible to an outsider and even kept secret within the teams," he said.

"So it's changed enormously - whether it's changed for the better; I think it's gone too far.

"I think it was good that it should become more sophisticated, more technical and so on but at a certain point there should have been a restriction on how much you can spend, and indeed I've tried to bring that in at the end of my time at the FIA but I didn't succeed."